Sujata Day, Actor, Writer/Director: Everyone I talked to everyone I had coffee with everyone
I was hanging out with I would say hey can you put money into my movie
or do you know of anyone who would put money into my film
Film Courage: Can you tell us more about how you wrote Definition Please?
Sujata: Yes, so I was in a UCB [Upright Citizens Brigade] sketch writing class in 2015 and
every week we had to write a new sketch, always coming up with new different ideas
and one of my sketches was entitled spelling bee winners where are they now which was based on my
fourth grade spelling bee experience and if you research spelling bee winners they are all doing
amazing things they are working for nasa they are designing robots they are
winning the world poker tournaments and and I just thought it would be funny if one of these
spelling bee winners grew up to be unsuccessful a loser living in their mom's basement playing
video games just not doing much with her life so that was that was the gist of my sketch and
this was four pages long and then I in at the end of 2016 I got into a Sundance screenwriting lab
and I went to the screenwriting lab and it was really inspiring and amazing and in 2017
a couple months later I decided to go to the Sundance film festival for the first time
and I went as a Sundance influencer Sundance asked me to take over their instagram and their twitter
and go to certain events and interview people and it was actually a great way to experience a
first Sundance kind of within the Sundance family and my friend Justin Chon's film
was playing there and so I went to the premiere and was just completely blown away by the film
and I cornered him at his post party and I asked him how he got it made and he said
I just got money from my friends and family and we just went out and made it ourselves and
I was like great that's what I'm going to do so I went back home after that first Sundance
and started jotting down ideas for Definition Please based on that sketch that I had written
two years prior and then throughout 2017 I worked on the first draft in 2018 I worked
on subsequent drafts of the film and a question I started with that premise of
okay what happens when a spelling bee winner grows up to not fulfill her potential and I took
that question and I asked okay what would be the reasons why this would affect her in in not taking
a job somewhere in moving on with her life and and I decided to answer those questions by oh it's her
relationships with her family with her mom with her dad with her brother and and her community
in general and so I incorporated those aspects into my script and as I believe at the end of 2018
I had my shooting draft of my script and I was ready to either get a production company on
board to shoot it or shoot it myself and you approached family and friends so in terms of
making the movie I had gone back to Sundance in 2019 this time with HBO and Justin's next film ms
purple was premiering there and I got out of that screening and I was like Justin has made two films
in the time that I told him that I was gonna make my film I am disappointing myself with not getting
out there and shooting my phone then and there I decided I'm gonna shoot Definition Please in the
summer of 2019. and so this was January 2019. as soon as I decided I got an email out of the blue
saying that a show that I had sold to a studio was caught up in the merger in the Time Warner
merger so they were now releasing the rights back to me along with sending me a gigantic check
so I was like well this is a sign because I had just decided to shoot my film so I took that check
and put it into Definition Please and I was the first money into my film as an investor and then I
got back from Sundance and I just went full force in raising money everyone I talked to everyone I
had coffee with everyone I was hanging out with I would say hey can you put money into my movie or
do of anyone who would put money into my film and so the thing with artists and actors in LA is they
don't necessarily have a ton of money to just be willy-nilly investing in other people's films
but they do have cousins and they do have friends who are maybe necessarily not in the industry
so they want to dip their toes into the industry and something that I noticed was that since I had
already put money into my film it was easier to get other investors on board and put money into
the film and then we just raised all the money and we were as we were raising the money we were
prepping to shoot so we were getting our crew together we were getting our cast together and I
did not have auditions for the cast I just texted my friends who I knew would be right for the roles
and a lot of them luckily said yes and were down to come to Greensburg [Pennsylvania] to shoot my
little film with me and then we got to Greensburg and we shot the film where did you put everyone up
did they stay at your parents house no no we actually got an extra producer came in at the
last minute and we got this influx of money which was really great and we got to put everyone up at
a Hampton Inn nearby and they all had a blast it was next to his Sheetz I don't know if you're from
familiar with sheets in western Pennsylvania but Sheetz is an mto sort of attached to a gas
station but they make these incredible sandwiches especially breakfast sandwiches that I'm obsessed
with called schmisketts schmuffin schmagel's and just these delicious fresh foods and the Hampton
Inn was walking distance from a Sheetz so a lot of our cast and crew also got obsessed with Sheetz
like I am so that was really exciting but that but what was also really amazing about the Hampton Inn
was it was only about two or three years old so it felt like a new hotel and they had breakfast every
morning and and I really believe in taking care of cast and crew and it just makes the overall
atmosphere of the film just better and if the cast and crew are happy then you'll have a good
product and everyone will be working well together and and I truly believe in that so I was really
excited to be able to put everyone up in in a nice-ish hotel and give them rental cars and
oh wow and fly them out and and it was great it's interesting because two of your very important
projects all came with a found like new found money like a check that showed up that you weren't
really expecting I just find that interesting yeah and what like sometimes when people get new found
money they spend it in different ways they'll put a deposit on a house they'll take a trip they'll
decide to start a family or what have you and and for me my priority has always been my work and so
I there is never any question of I'm going to put this money back into my work obviously.
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